Diverse Expressions: Dialogues on Creativity and Disability

Special Event
Artist Talk
23 February 2024
This is a close-up photo of me (Sam) releasing urine from my catheter into a yellow water balloon. I’m wearing blue pants faded to purple, a grey plaid shirt and brown leather sandals. My Dystonic hand is visible from the top left corner, pushing urine out of my catheter bag.
This is a close-up photo of me (Sam) releasing urine from my catheter into a yellow water balloon. I’m wearing blue pants faded to purple, a grey plaid shirt and brown leather sandals. My Dystonic hand is visible from the top left corner, pushing urine out of my catheter bag.

Join Sam Petersen and Restless Dance Theatre artists in conversation, as part of the Adelaide Festival's Time To Talk series.

When

U City

23 February 2024

5:00pm to 8:30pm

Access

Join artists in conversation about disability and creativity at U City with Restless Dance Theatre and Adelaide Contemporary Experimental (ACE).

This event includes two conversations and a keynote performance by Sam Petersen. Find out more about the sessions, performance and schedule below.

Find detailed venue access information on the venue page here.

Feature Image: Sam Petersen, 'Wee', 2020, digital photograph. Courtesy of the artist.

Event schedule

5.30pm Empowering Creativity talk.

Exploring the voices and rights of Restless Dance Theatre’s artists with disability

Private View is a new dance theatre work from restless Dance Theatre that explores the secret desires and taboo subjects of love and sex through diverse personal experiences. Leading up to its world premiere in the 2024 Adelaide Festival, artists from Restless will give an insight into their inspirations, individual perspectives and creative processes. The panel includes Artistic Director Michelle Ryan, Creative Producer Roz Hervey, dancer Michael Hodyl and dancer Darcy Carpenter in conversation with Adelaide Festival Artistic Director, Ruth Mackenzie CBE.

Audiences at this talk will be given fresh insight into the artistic vision of Restless Dance Theatre’s artists through this conversation and a video showcase of the company’s work.

6:30pm Break (30 mins)

7.00pm Keynote Performance by Sam Petersen.

Something Yucky: A Rant

“I am a multidisciplinary artist and I reclaim the word ‘rant’ to its rightful place. Rants, especially those by femmes, are steeped in negative connotations of unjust complaining, which are too often dismissed. I will not be dismissed. The utter rage of someone who is not meant to have a voice and is made to feel small and so wordless over and over and over again. I tell it like it is, in a powerful performance. So sit and listen.”

- Sam Petersen

7:30pm What is Yucky?

A conversation between Yucky lead artist Sam Petersen and co-facilitator Grace Marlow

Opening on 17 Feb at ACE as part of the 2024 Adelaide Festival, Yucky is a group exhibition that explores the personal and political complexities that exist as part of disabled experience.

Join Yucky’s lead artist, Sam Petersen, for a conversation about yuckiness with Grace Marlow, co-facilitator of the exhibition.

Time to Talk is a series of conversations with artists from the 2024 Festival and key industry figures that will take place in February and March. Each of these events is free to attend, but registration is required.

I'm 39 years old. I have mousey brown braided hair in the style of Katniss Everdeen and fair skin. I’m wearing plain clear pink framed glasses, a grey shirt and a green jumper. I'm looking at the camera like I know everything with a slight smile.
I'm 39 years old. I have mousey brown braided hair in the style of Katniss Everdeen and fair skin. I’m wearing plain clear pink framed glasses, a grey shirt and a green jumper. I'm looking at the camera like I know everything with a slight smile.
I'm 39 years old. I have mousey brown braided hair in the style of Katniss Everdeen and fair skin. I’m wearing plain clear pink framed glasses, a grey shirt and a green jumper. I'm looking at the camera like I know everything with a slight smile.

Sam Petersen is a queer visual artist, writer and performer and an AAC and power wheelchair user, living and working by the Birrarung, on the stolen lands of the Wurundjeri and Boonwurrung people of the Kulin nation.

I’m interested in what can be done with one’s identity and the space around it. Both my body and mind, touching everyday feelings between the rational, the playful and the political. Of course, this is often to do with my disability and my sexuality. My work has been focused on access, and the lack of it — to places, people’s minds and opportunities.

Sam completed a Bachelor of Fine Art at the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne in 2016. Sam has exhibited and performed widely including Liquid Architecture (2019); TCB (2017); West Space (2017, 2018, 2020); Bus Projects (2017, 2021); and Incinerator Gallery (2018). Sam presented a major solo exhibition My pee is political with Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney (2020); and exhibited in Overlapping Magisteria, The 2020 Macfarlane Commissions, ACCA, Melbourne, curated by Max Delany and Miriam Kelly.

Headshot of Grace Marlow. Grace has pale white skin, brown eyes, and a silver septum nose ring. They are wearing a black tank top and black pants. They have a blonde buzz cut and a thinly braided 'rat's tail', which is draped over their right shoulder. They sit against a white background, looking directly at the camera.
Headshot of Grace Marlow. Grace has pale white skin, brown eyes, and a silver septum nose ring. They are wearing a black tank top and black pants. They have a blonde buzz cut and a thinly braided 'rat's tail', which is draped over their right shoulder. They sit against a white background, looking directly at the camera.
Grace Marlow, 2023 facilitator ‘Yucky’, Adelaide Contemporary Experimental. Photography by Jonathan Van Der Knaap.

Grace has a keen interest in live arts programming, community engagement, and access, and loves when art, food, music and community collide. They remain passionate and invested in localised DIY art scenes, intermittently organising performance, poetry and film events at venues such as REWIND Studios and Ancient World. 

Grace is a member of the Deaf Gain collective. The collective, based on Kaurna Country Adelaide, advocates for the celebration and inclusion of local and national Deaf artists and greater access to arts and culture for the Deaf community.

Grace was a co-director of artist-run initiative Sister Gallery (2017–2019), Education and Schools Officer at SALA Festival (2019), and an Associate Producer of Liveworks Festival of Experimental Art, Performance Space (NSW) (2023).  

Grace is currently the Public Programs Coordinator at Adelaide Contemporary Experimental (ACE).

This project is presented and supported by Adelaide Festival. The Yucky Reading Room is supported by the City of Adelaide.

Related Exhibition
Yucky

17 February to 4 May 2024

Yucky is a group exhibition that explores the personal and political complexities that exist as part of disabled experience.

See Exhibition

ACE tampinthi, ngadlu Kaurna yartangka panpapanpalyarninthi (inparrinthi). Kaurna miyurna yaitya mathanya Wama Tarntanyaku. Parnaku yailtya, parnaku tapa purruna, parnaku yarta ngadlu tampnthi. Yalaka Kaurna miyurna itu yailtya, tapa purruna, yarta kuma puru martinthi, puru warri-apinthi, puru tangka martulayinthi.

ACE respectfully acknowledges the traditional Country of the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains and pays respect to Elders past and present. We recognise and respect their cultural heritage, beliefs and relationship with the land. We acknowledge that they are of continuing importance to the Kaurna people living today.

ACE tampinthi, ngadlu Kaurna yartangka panpapanpalyarninthi (inparrinthi). Kaurna miyurna yaitya mathanya Wama Tarntanyaku. Parnaku yailtya, parnaku tapa purruna, parnaku yarta ngadlu tampnthi. Yalaka Kaurna miyurna itu yailtya, tapa purruna, yarta kuma puru martinthi, puru warri-apinthi, puru tangka martulayinthi.

ACE respectfully acknowledges the traditional Country of the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains and pays respect to Elders past and present. We recognise and respect their cultural heritage, beliefs and relationship with the land. We acknowledge that they are of continuing importance to the Kaurna people living today.